Backing Up that Old Hard Drive

Jan 31 15:38 UTC 1994

Here is a place to tell us how you back up your hard drive(s), and of
course to learn how others do it.

response 2 of 61:

Feb 1 06:47 UTC 1994

I think the concept of backing up a hard drive on another one is
excellent if you can afford the hardware, but there are three
variants of your approach and they each have different merits.

(1) Tape. The advantage is that you can handle Gigabytes of data.
This is great if you have file servers to back up, but makes little
sense for the average computer owner, as you lose the benefit of
just dragging the files. They run via special software, and
are not randomly accessible.

(2) Removable disks. I favor this approach. In fact, I use this approach!
I have a 44MB Syquest drive (They can be bought new for $240 from
MacWarehouse). The drive is thus as cheap as the cheapest hard drive
(except for the steal rcurl got on his) and has some significant 
advantages. It is the nature of disk space to increase. Unlike a
fixed disk, removables can contain unlimited storage. I started with
just a few cartridges but now I have a dozen. You can maintain more
than 1 generation of backup. I highly recommend this. What happens
if some critical file on your disk gets hosed and you don't notice
until you run the backup??? You're screwed. With two generations,
you're still OK.

(3) Use MO instead of SQ in #2. MO (Magneto-optical) is a much more
stable medium than Syquests. Syquests are still hard disks. You can
take an MO disk and Magnet it to the refrigerator and it will not
lose a bit. Don't let a magnet get too close to a disk, though.
The media is cheaper, which makes MO a reasonable choice in between
SQ and Tape. the drives are a lot more expensive than SW though.

I prefer SQ 'cause you can get started with it for under $300.
I am queasy about having only one generation of backup, rcurl.

response 4 of 61:

Feb 2 08:03 UTC 1994

I found that I've been elaborating my desktop with files that I am
downloading from archives, and therefore not keeping floppy copies.
I could make a list, of course, but the thought of downloading all that
stuff *again* is what drove me to this expediency. Now, I have some
questions about what I have done:

Since I just dragged and dropped my PB HD volume onto the LaCie volume,
I have everything there, including the System. Is that volume, then
a bootable volume? I didn't run an Installer to put a System on the
LaCie separately. 

Then, it gets more complicated, because I am going to do the same with
an SE's HD volume, so I will have *two* HD volumes (with Sys's 7.1 and
6.0.8) on the LaCie volume. First, is the Sys 6.0.8 volume also 
bootable, and second, *what happens if my internal HD drives and I
start up with the LaCie volume on the SCSI chain*?? How do I choose
which System boots (if either will, etc). I know I don't understand a
lot about this at the moment, so would appreciate clarifications.

response 6 of 61:

Feb 2 14:16 UTC 1994

Then I would appreciate information from someone experienced in this
a recommendation for the steps to take to ensure I am backing-up my
two computer HDs by this procedure, and what other steps I should take
to ensure recoverability. Do I really ever need to boot from the backup
drive? (i.e. - HELP! straighten me out!)

response 8 of 61:

Feb 8 02:09 UTC 1994

You can have two System folders on the same mac drive if you use
someting called Ssytem Switcher 1.1 (that was the last version
I saw). run SysSwch and select which system will function NEXT time
you restart/boot the machine. 
  
Tastes great, less filling.
  

response 10 of 61:

Feb 10 13:32 UTC 1994

The hidden files might have been any of anumber of things.  There
can be a hidden file named "icon\r" if you have a customized icon
for a disk or folder. The desktop files "Desktop DB" and "Desktop
DF" are also hidden, but most copying programs don't trip over them.
Were you using the finder to copy? if so neither of these two would
have caused a problem. Basically I don't know. You can see hidden
files with ResEdits's Get File/Folder info filepicker dialog. You
may have to hunt about some.

I'm not too familiar with System Picker, but if it's selecting which
drive boots, it must be putting that info in the PRam, just like
Apple's "Startup Disk" control panel. If the selected disk is
absent, the code in ROM that handles boot disk selection will go
through a standard search pattern looking for a bootable disk.

Concerning rebuilding the desktop. Before sys 7 came out, the Desktop
Manager was invented to handle desktops on File Servers. It replaced
the old Desktop file with 2 files, "Desktop DB" and "Desktop DF".
Many people found the improved performance a real plus and started
using Desktop manager on their non-fileserver macs.

When sys 7 came out, Desktop Manager was built into it. This means
that if the system had been running sys 6 without DM, sys 7 will
have to rebuild the desktop while booting. You said you have the DM
installed. I was certainly given to understand that if the sys 6 you
are running has DM installed, then sys 7 will not need to rebuild.
I have not done this myself though. I just stay on sys 7.
Are you *sure* the DM was installed on the sys 6 you booted?

response 12 of 61:

Feb 11 13:43 UTC 1994

I have no explanation.

response 14 of 61:

Feb 28 07:45 UTC 1994

Sys Picker offers you the choice of both Volume (disk) and System,
from which you will boot. It looks everywhere for any systems.

response 16 of 61:

Mar 8 01:24 UTC 1994

It hardly matters, as in either case it will result in the old backups
being deleted nd new ones written where they were. If you trash them
first you will be prompterd to empty the trash to free up sufficient space,
but if you don't you will be asked if you wanted the existing folder
to be replaced by the copy. The effect is the same.

response 18 of 61:

Mar 9 01:41 UTC 1994

No. The Finder does not compare and check to see if anything doesn't need
copying. It just deletes everything and copies it all over again. You can
get that kind of functionality with a backup or file synchronizing
program, though. Then it can be much faster. I do my backups with a file
sync program that I wrote myself. I wanted to sell it as shareware, but it
has some limitations. I never spent the time to eliminate those, and so I
never released it to the public. Now there are a zillion synchronizing
programs, so I think I'll spend my time on other things.

response 20 of 61:

Mar 9 14:24 UTC 1994

Actually, what will be the *fastest* would be to drag everything to the
trash and *then* copy over.  However, this would only be faster if you had
the extra disk space to do this.  In doing this, you skip the time needed
to delete the "old" copies of everything.  You can then "empty trash" at
a later time.

response 22 of 61:

Mar 10 01:35 UTC 1994

Yes, Rane. The function performed during emptying of the trash is
the same as the function performed when you copy a new item into a 
folder with the same name as an old one, and say OK to the 
"replace" dialog. They take the same amount of time.

You would save time by avoiding this "file deletion" phase, but only
until you had filled up the disk, and then you could no longer benefit.
If you had the disk space, you could rename the backup to be
OLD Backup and then drag and drop, keeping two generations.
I have espoused the benefits of this in the past,  but to be gain
any safety the two generations should really be on different disks.

response 24 of 61:

May 4 06:03 UTC 1994

You should care if it's removable. If you count all my cartridges,
I have over 500MB accessible. And I can add more whenever I want.
I use it mostly for backup and I can have multiple generations cheaply,
and keep them off site, and access them directly when I need to.

You can't do that with a fixed disk.

I also carry the cartidges between home and work in my briefcase,
they're very light.

$200 is about as cheap as new drives get in any world - regardless of MB..

In the Mac world, we pay $299 for a 340MB fixed drive.
(That price is right out of a ClubMac ad - Quantum 11ms 3.5" low profile)
1.8GB is around $1050 for a 3.5" half-height.
I think this is the same world as the PC world.